Under the terms of the settlement, reached before Judge Barbara Bellis, Martins will get $630,000 while Nascimento gets $370,000.

Both Martins and Nascimento declined comment on the settlement. However, Nascimento's wife, Creuza, made it clear she was not happy with the outcome.

Martins and Nascimento had been friends, meeting for lunch at Carmelina's Restaurant, playing cards every day and buying Powerball tickets together twice a week.

"We agreed that Nuno would decide how many tickets he wanted to buy, and I would then give him one-half of the cash and Nuno would then buy the tickets," Martins stated in a lawsuit. "We agreed that we would share any winnings on a 50-50 basis."

Martins states in the suit, he and Nascimento were having lunch in February 2009 when Nascimento asked him for $75 to buy Powerball tickets for that night's drawing.

"I gave Nuno $74, I didn't give him $75 because I did not have that exact amount on me," according to the lawsuit.

One of the tickets purchased by Nascimento at a local grocery store hit for $1 million, according to the suit, but Nascimento didn't tell Martins about the win.

Instead, Martins contends that Nascimento and his wife, Creuza, presented the winning ticket at lottery headquarters and collected a check for $700,000 after taxes.

Martins states that he subsequently heard from others he knows in the local Portuguese community that Nascimento had won the lottery.

"I asked Nuno if he had won the lottery and he told me he had not won," Martins states in the lawsuit. Nascimento instead had claimed he had received a windfall from selling property in Portugal, according to the lawsuit.

Martins said Nascimento has since conceded he may have won some money in the lottery, and offered to give Martins $375 as his share.

The Connecticut Lottery Corp. held the winnings pending resolution of the court case.

Contact Daniel Tepfer at 203-330-6308 or dtepfer@ctpost.com. Follow him on twitter.com/dantepfer